Transcript

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>> Digging up a painful past. Polish prosecutors have begun the exhumation of President Lech Kaczynski. He died in a plane crash in Russia in 2010. The late leaders remains are being examined as part of an investigation into the incident. The crash near Smolensk in Western Russia killed 96 people, including Kaczynski's wife, top army brass and the Central Bank Governor.

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An enquiry by Poland's previous centrist government ruled pilot error caused the crash after an attempt to land in heavy fog, but Kaczynski's twin brother says an onboard explosion could have caused the crash. His nationalist minded party unseated the centrists in an election last year.>>

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> The president's death has become one of the most fraught public issues in the country, with some claiming foul play.

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And critics calling the fresh inquiry politically motivated. Among the issues prosecutors want to determine whether there was no mix up of remains during burial and whether damage to the bodies has been described correctly. They argue Russia's refusal to return the plane's wreckage is a critical obstacle. Moscow say the wreckage cannot be returned until its own criminal inquiry is concluded.

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For investigators, the bodies are all they have. Other exhumations will follow in the coming months.